"Let no one speak! Let us wait until we hear his dying screams," they said to each other, whispering, and each one covered his face as the log fell noisily. He [Zipacná] spoke then, crying out, but he called only once when the log fell to the bottom.
"How well we have succeeded in this! Now he is dead," said the boys. "if, unfortunately, he had continued what he had begun to do, we would have been lost, because he already had interfered with us, the four hundred boys."
And filled with joy they said: "Now we must make our chicha[71] within the next three days. When the three days are passed, we shall drink to the construction of our new house, we, the, four hundred boys." Then they said: "Tomorrow we shall look, and day after tomorrow, we shall also look to see if the ants do not come out of the earth when the body smells and begins to rot. Presently we shall become calm and drink our chicha," they said.
But from his pit Zipacná listened to everything the boys said. And later, on the second day, multitudes of ants came, going and coming and gathering under the log. Some carried Zipacná's hair in their mouths and others carried his fingernails.
When the boys saw this, they said, "That devil has now perished. Look how the ants have gathered, how they have come by hordes, some bringing his hair and others his fingernails. Look what we have done!" So they spoke to each other.
Nevertheless, Zipacná was very much alive. He had cut his hair and gnawed off his fingernails to give them to the ants.
And so the four hundred boys believed that he was dead, and on the third day they began the orgy and all of the boys got drunk. And the four hundred being drunk knew nothing any more. And then Zipacná let the house fall on their heads and killed all of them.
Not even one or two among the four hundred were saved; they were killed by Zipacná, son of Vucub-Caquix.
In this way the four hundred boys died, and it is said that they became the group of stars which because of them are called Motz,[72] but it may not be true.
[71] A drink of the Guatemalan Indians, made of fermented corn.
[72] A mass, the Seven Little Sisters, the Pleiades. Brasseur de Bourbourg notes that Omuch qaholab, the four hundred young men who perished in an orgy, are the same as those who were worshiped in Mexico under the name Centzon-Totochtin, the four hundred rabbits who were implored as gods to protect the pulque and the drunkards.
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